Listening from the Heart

[PureInsight.org] I dreamed I
was in an experience sharing group. I began sharing on how to listen. I
began, "Most of us don't know how to listen, we just want to express
our own thoughts. There are a couple of principles I've found in
listening. First..."



Then, someone interrupted me.



I continued. "The first one is not interrupting.  If you're interrupting then your listening to the other person.



"The second is..."

Then someone raised his hand and began shaking it wildly.



I continued, "The second is not raising your hand while someone else is
talking. If you do, then you aren't respecting what that person has to
say and are only thinking about getting in what you want to say."



It went on like that with a couple more examples where people's actions illustrated what not to do.



I concluded, "The most important thing is listening from the heart. Hearing with compassion the perspective of another."



This dream reminds me of Master's teaching in Philadelphia:

"So what's their [the Great Enlightened Beings'] state of mind? It's
tolerance, an extremely immense tolerance, being able to accept other
beings, and being able to truly think from other beings' perspectives.
This is something a lot of you haven't achieved yet in your
cultivation, but you're gradually catching on and achieving it. When
another God proposes an idea, they aren't eager to reject it, and they
aren't eager to express their own ideas and they don't believe that
their own ideas are good. Instead, they look at what the end result of
the other God's proposed approach will be. "